Schellnhuber speaks at World Economic Forum in Davos

01/23/2015 - The World Economic Forum in Davos, assembling hundreds of government and business leaders, invited the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, to speak. He joined a panel on climate risks with the Secretary-General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the President of the financial services and rating company Standard & Poor's , and the President of the Rockefeller Foundation. The audience included scientists like Naomi Oreskes of Harvard University and policy-makers such as Christiana Figueres of the UNFCCC.

Climate change is on top of the global risks interconnections map, from the World Economic Forum's Global Risks 2015 report (see weblink)

“The risks of unabated global warming - from weather extremes to regional water scarcity - are at core of the ‘new global context’ that the Davos meeting is exploring,” said Schellnhuber. “The most recent 2014 heat record is indeed the new normal and insignificant compared to the records we’re already programming into the Earth system by emitting more and more greenhouse gases. This year now offers a unique chance for decision-makers, be it at the G7-meeting or at the world climate conference in Paris, to steer the course of human history – one way, or the other.”

In seven seminars at Davos, a new study on planetary boundaries was presented that has just been published in Science by a team of 18 researchers, including two from PIK. On the website of the World Economic Forum, Daniel Klingenfeld, Head of Director’s Staff at PIK, published an invited blogpost on the link between combating climate change and reducing global poverty.